North Korea has made the first tangible moves toward abandoning its nuclear arms. Yesterday, before the world’s invited media it blew up the cooling tower of its Yongbyong nuclear reactor. Twenty-four hours earlier, it gave the Chinese documents detailing its nuclear program. Those files, as expected, contained no details of its stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Hawks in Washington are protesting that these concessions, won after tortuous on-off negotiations, 16 months ago, are simply not enough to justify the resumption of aid to this poverty- stricken country and the partial lifting of sanctions. The hawks are wrong.
Bearing in mind the obdurate and paranoid nature of the isolated Pyongyang regime, what has been achieved this week is significant. It may be a long way short of the complete dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weaponry, but it is a start. And much of the credit must go to the Chinese, who chair the six-nation committee that has edged the North Koreans this far.
Sure the document delivery was six months late, but it was delivered in the end. Washington will now wait 45 days for verification of the declaration within before it begins moves to remove North Korea from its terror list. Meanwhile talks on the next stage of the disarmament process are expected to begin in July.
No one should be in any doubt that the next round of negotiations will be every bit as tough as their predecessors. Pyongyang has played the nuclear card and won concessions that would not have been given otherwise. From the regime’s point of view, the very fact it is negotiating the destruction of that nuclear card suggests that it is moving from a position of strength to weakness. It will want to wring every advantage that it can to keep its economically failed state alive and guarantees that once it has disarmed, its territorial integrity will be protected by other states, notably China.
North Korea has instilled in its people the message that it is threatened by outside powers and must, therefore, remain a highly militarized state ever ready to repel invaders. That this was bunkum seemed evident until President Bush, with characteristic ineptitude, began to talk darkly about military strikes if the North Koreans refused to negotiate away their nuclear weaponry. That doubtless enhanced Pyongyang’s determination to drive the hardest bargain possible. The six-month delay in providing the program details also suggests the North Koreans want to be sure that the belligerent Bush administration be well on its way out of office, before yielding ground.
However unattractive and brutal North Korea may be, political reality demands that the rest of the world consider its concerns, however baseless. The current economically incoherent regime has no long-term future. It is always fighting for time against the day when it will collapse through its own incompetence. China knows this better than anyone else and by cutting off fuel and power could bring Pyongyang to its knees in weeks. That it chooses not to is a reflection of a carefully considered foreign policy.
